Twelve Weeks, Stated Plainly: Publishing Lead Times as a Somerset Trade Promise

There is a quiet convention in Somerset trade businesses that a price is public and a timescale is private. Rates go on the website; dates are negotiated behind closed doors once the deposit clears. It is a courteous habit, inherited from an era of paper order books and handshake bookings, and it is costing workshops work.

A customer weighing up two joiners in the same town is not comparing two prices in isolation. They are comparing two unknowns. The one who says "from £1,850, typically eight to ten weeks" has answered the question the buyer was actually asking. The one who says "from £1,850, we'll be in touch" has left the harder half of the decision to a phone call that may never happen.

A lead time is a quotation, not a confession

Publishing a waiting period is routinely mistaken for admitting that a business is disorganised or overstretched. In practice the opposite reading is the common one. A stated lead time tells a buyer that somebody is counting hours, that the order book is real, and that the workshop has enough confidence in its own rhythm to put a number on it.

Consider how the alternative looks. Silence on timing invites the buyer to assume the best — a fortnight, perhaps — and then to feel misled when the truth arrives. A published twelve weeks disqualifies some enquiries immediately, which is not a loss. Those were never going to convert, and the hours spent quoting them are hours not spent at the bench.

For buyers in the heritage sector, timing carries extra weight. A faculty or a parish council working to a financial year, a grant condition or a faculty deadline cannot absorb a sliding date. They will pay for certainty, and they will pay it to whoever offered it first.

Working out a figure you can stand behind

A published lead time should be derived, not guessed. The method that holds up is unglamorous arithmetic.

Start with the hours actually available, not the hours on the door. Take the workshop's weekly productive capacity — the hours that reliably produce sellable work once quoting, site visits, deliveries, invoicing and the inevitable broken machine are removed — and multiply by the weeks you genuinely work, allowing for holidays, the Somerset Show week, and the dead fortnight either side of Christmas.

Then list the jobs already committed, with honest hour estimates rather than optimistic ones. Divide. Add a buffer of between ten and twenty per cent, larger for anything touching listed buildings, imported timber, cast stone or kiln-dried stock, where drying and curing schedules are outside your control. Add explicit allowances for planning or faculty consent where the client must obtain it.

The resulting figure should be published as a range, not a single number: "currently booking from the second week of March" is clearer than "twelve weeks", because it survives the passage of time on a web page. Better still, date-stamp it: "Lead time reviewed 1 November 2026." A stale date is worse than no date, and a reviewer will notice.

When the date moves

The test of a published lead time is not how it reads in a good month. It is what happens when a job overruns, a delivery fails, or a member of staff is off for three weeks.

Three disciplines make the difference. First, tell the client the moment the slip is known — not when the original date arrives and passes. A revised date offered four weeks early reads as management; the same news delivered on the day reads as an excuse. Second, give a new window rather than a new day, and explain in one sentence what caused the movement. Third, offer something concrete: a staged delivery, a temporary fix, a holding coat of finish, a loan of a similar piece where that is feasible. Third, put it in writing the same day, even if the conversation was by telephone.

It also pays to build a slip clause into the terms. Something along the lines of: "Dates are given in good faith based on current workload. Where a delay arises we will notify you within two working days and agree a revised date." That single sentence has settled more disputes than most contracts' worth of small print.

Deposits, windows and the order of the queue

A lead time only means something if a booking is real. Publish what converts an enquiry into a place in the queue: typically a deposit of a stated percentage, a signed acceptance of the quotation, and confirmation of any client-supplied decisions — finish, ironmongery, stone colour, access arrangements.

State plainly what a deposit does and does not buy. It secures a slot; it does not fix the slot against a client who cannot confirm a decision. A short paragraph in the terms explaining that the booking window starts when the client's final choices are received will prevent most of the arguments that arise in a busy spring.

Wording a small workshop can adapt

Few of us have time to rewrite a website, so borrow what follows.

Lead times. Our current lead time for new commissions is [X to Y] weeks from confirmation of deposit and final specification, reviewed on the first working day of each month. We will confirm your start week in writing when you book.

Deposits. A deposit of [30]% reserves your place in the queue. The balance is due [on completion / in two stages].

If something changes. If we believe your date is at risk we will contact you within two working days, explain why, and agree a revised date in writing. We would rather tell you early than on the day.

What we need from you. Your date is held once we have [finish choice / dimensions / access confirmation]. Until then we hold the slot but cannot guarantee the week.

Read it aloud before publishing. If it sounds like a solicitor, cut it back; if it sounds like a shrug, tighten it.

The longer view

Somerset's trade reputation rests on work that outlasts the person who made it. Lead times belong to that same tradition of plain dealing. A number published in advance, and honoured or renegotiated in good time, is a small daily demonstration that the workshop keeps its word. That is worth more, in the end, than a competitive rate on a page nobody quite trusts.